Search

10 Things The Romney Campaign Doesn’t Want You To Know About Paul Ryan

Most people don’t know just how bad Romney’s VP choice is. So we made this list of 10 things to know about Paul Ryan. Read it, then share it with everyone. The future of America is on the line—from a woman’s right to choose to our economy.

10 Things to know about Paul Ryan

1. His economic plan would cost America 1 million jobs in the first year.Ryan’s proposed budget would cripple the economy. He’d slash spending deeply, which would not only slow job growth, but shock the economy and cost 1 million of us our jobs in 2013 alone and kill more than 4 million jobs by the end of 2014.[1]

2. He’d kill Medicare. He’d replace Medicare with vouchers for retirees to purchase insurance, eliminating the guarantee of health care for seniors and putting them at the mercy of the private insurance industry. That could amount to a cost increase of more than $5,900 by 2050, leaving many seniors broke or without the health care they need. He’d also raise the age of eligibility to 67.[2]

3. He’d pickpocket the middle class to line the pockets of the rich. His tax plan is Robin Hood in reverse. He wants to cut taxes by $4.6 trillion over the next decade, but only for corporations and the rich, like giving families earning more than $1 million a year a $300,000 tax cut. And to pay for them, he’d raise taxes on middle- and lower-income households and butcher social service programs that help middle- and working-class Americans.[3]

4. He’s an anti-choice extremist. Ryan co-sponsored an extremist anti-choice bill, nicknamed the ‘Let Women Die Act,’ that would have allowed hospitals to deny women emergency abortion care even if their lives were at risk. And he co-sponsored another bill that would criminalize some forms of birth control, all abortions, and in vitro fertilization.[4]

5. He’d dismantle Social Security. Ironically, Ryan used the Social Security Survivors benefit to help pay for college, but he wants to take that possibility away from future generations. He agrees with Rick Perry’s view that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and he supported George W. Bush’s disastrous proposal to privatize Social Security.[5]

6. He’d eliminate Pell grants for more than 1 million low-income students.His budget plan cuts the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could mean a loss of educational funding for 1 million low-income students.[6]

7. He’d give $40 billion in subsidies to Big Oil. His budget includes oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while cutting “billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil.”[7]

8. He’s another Koch-head politician. Not surprisingly, the billionaire oil-baron Koch brothers are some of Ryan’s biggest political contributors. And their company, Koch industries, is Ryan’s biggest energy-related donor. The company’s PAC and affiliated individuals have given him $65,500 in donations.[8]

9. He opposes gay rights. Ryan has an abysmal voting record on gay rights. He’s voted to ban adoption by gay couples, against same-sex marriage, and against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He also voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2009.[9]

10. He thinks an “I got mine, who cares if you’re okay” philosophy is admirable. For many years, Paul Ryan devoted himself to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness as a virtue. It has shaped his entire ethic about whom he serves in public office. He even went as far as making his interns read her work.[10]

If there was ever any doubt that Mitt Romney’s got a disastrous plan for America—he made himself 100% clear when he picked right-wing extremist Paul Ryan as his running mate. Paul Ryan is bad for America, but we can’t beat him if Americans don’t know everything he stands for. Share this page with all your friends.

There’s a good cop / bad cop routine underway, but it’s Social Security and Medicare that are getting rubber-hosed in the back room.

Rather than giving credit to those who compromise with Paul Ryan‘s agenda, let’s shift the range of the debate by insisting that any cuts be cuts to the military, the wars, the fossil fuel subsidies, the prison industry, or the banker bailouts.

Vermont is under water. New Jersey is reeling. North Carolina is just starting to pick up the pieces. But Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is already taking Hurricane Irene‘s victims hostage.

Truly, Mr. Cantor has no shame. It’s outrageous to take advantage of the urgent needs of hurricane survivors in order to advance his radical crusade to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But that’s exactly what one of the top Republicans in Congressional leadership is doing with his refusal to allocate money to disaster relief unless Congress first offsets that money with cuts to vital government programs.1

Hurricane Irene blazed a path across the eastern seaboard causing tens of billions of dollars in damage. To make matters worse, our federal disaster fund is dangerously low in the wake of a string of recent tornadoes and other extreme weather-related natural disasters. It’s so bad that FEMA has actually had to temporarily suspend some payments to rebuilding projects in Joplin, Mo., and other states hit hard this spring by tornadoes in order to pay for urgent needs caused by Hurricane Irene.2

As if the devastation caused by Hurricane Irene weren’t enough, Republican Eric Cantor wants to hold hurricane victims hostage in order to extort more budget cuts. He’s insisting that funds needed to meet immediate human needs must first be “offset” with budget cuts elsewhere.3

Make no mistake. We won’t “offset” money spent on emergency disaster relief and rebuilding by cutting the budget for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Republicans won’t touch the obscene tax subsidies they have awarded to the big oil companies whose products are accelerating global warming and contributing to the extreme weather events that are the cause of intensifying natural disasters. When Cantor talks about the need to “offset” disaster funding, what he’s really saying is that we have to accede to his demands to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

This is low even for someone like Rep. Eric Cantor. And because many of the states hit hardest by the hurricane and spring are led by Republican governors, there will be bipartisan pressure to fully fund disaster recovery. If enough of us call Rep. Cantor out on this reprehensible ploy to advance his crusade for cuts to Medicare, we can force him to back down.

It’s cynical and wrong to capitalize on a natural disaster that has destroyed homes, wiped out bridges and pushed already struggling businesses to the brink just to advance Republicans’ radical Tea Party agenda. It’s the role of government to respond to the needs of its people in the wake of disaster. Republicans like Eric Cantor need to get out of the way and let the federal government do its job — help the states aid those in immediate danger and as quickly as possible begin the essential work of repairing the damage done.